Silver Songs and Tin Men
by Crave Kashmir
Summary: There are a lot of things DG doesn't know - about the OZ, being a princess, diplomacy, and men. But there's one lesson she's about to learn the hard way. Eventual DG/Cain. (Adapted from Alisha Ashton's officially abandoned If It's Worth Saving Me.)
1. Chapter 1: The Great Escape

Silver Songs and Tin Men  
>Adapted from Alisha Ashton's<em> If It's Worth Saving Me<em>

Chapter 1: The Great Escape

She was just a waitress and a part-time student.

Scratch that.

She was a _princess_ and a _full-time_ student.

DG had expected things to be different. She had gotten the tear-filled reunion; the embraces so tight ribs popped out of place; the family she had searched and fought for, but after that initial burst of love and gratitude it all settled down into something terrifyingly similar to the old life she had hated. So she wasn't learning about economics and political science of the Other Side, she was learning about the monetary and nobility systems of the Outer Zone, her provinces and surrounding kingdoms. It was still dull. And she was still taking orders, more than she ever had as a waitress in a childish gingham uniform.

She thought the classes and job back home had been passing the time. She had been wrong. They had been preparatory classes for this, her real life. Dull as dirt and twice as slow.

"Are you listening?" the voice of her history tutor, a spindly man of indeterminate years and no humor to speak of, asked in a crisp tone that could cut through diamonds.

"Of course," she said with the smile honed through late shifts and the most irritating of customers.

"Then perhaps you could tell me what you've just learned?" the man gestured to the name written in impeccable cursive on the blackboard behind him.

DG read it and sighed. "Ozma. The former ruler of the Outer Zone, she had been stolen away by a cruel trick and lived the first ten years of her life as a boy before becoming the greatest Queen the OZ ever had."

"Correct."

DG wanted to beam with pride, but the man was already droning on again about the things Ozma had done in her lifetime. She stopped listening, her thoughts more interested in imagining what the supposedly immortal Ozma was up to now, what her impressions of the OZ had been after living in another land most of her life. DG wondered what the girl had thought of becoming a girl again, wearing ridiculously frilly dresses and playing at tea instead of stumbling through mud wallows and ponds catching frogs. If the little Queen hated it, DG fully felt her pain.

She shifted in her seat, the crinoline of her underskirt rustling loudly and poking at her legs. There was no way she could survive six more hours of either her dress or her lessons.

"I'm sorry, Messer Bunt," DG said in her best princess voice, standing to her full height to better establish her authority. "You must excuse me."

"Our lesson is not yet at an end, highness," the man replied, his tone far from respectful despite his use of the title.

"There are times when you do not want to deny a girl a trip to the toilets, if you catch my meaning," she levelled him with a hard glare and gestured to the deep red of her dress. It was a color she only wore one week out of the month, and a color everyone had learned to respect if they knew what was good for them.

The tiny man blanched. "Ah, yes, of course, highness. I will inform your other tutors."

"Thank you," she said and watched the man hastily gather his supplies. He stammered out further assurances and hurried to the door.

DG suppressed the undignified hoot that tried to escape her mouth, managing instead a slight cough and a smile gracefully hidden behind her hand. Her brief moment of amusement was cut short by the deep voice of a man she once considered a friend.

"What did you do to Bunt?"

The princess turned, her face affecting wide-eyed innocence. "Nothing."

"I'll believe that the day you sprout wings," Cain replied, arms folded and humorless gaze expectant.

"You accidentally blow up a vase and suddenly everyone is terrified of you," the girl sighed.

"They do when the vase is five feet tall, a thousand annuals old and made of unbreakable morytanium," the man replied with something of his old smile.

"One time!" DG growled and pushed past him. She wanted to shove him out of her way, but he moved just out of her reach as she drew closer. That's how it was now. No one was allowed to touch her or be touched by her. Inappropriate, they called it, unseemly and undignified. She hadn't been hugged by anyone in weeks, not that she had felt much like participating in a joyful embrace; she could have done with a comforting pat on the back at least, but, no, that wasn't permitted either.

"Where you goin', Princess?"

"To my rooms."

"Lessons over for the day?"

She spun around and stomped back to him, glaring up into his face with all the ire she could muster. "Look at my dress."

"Mighty fancy," Cain commented with barely a glance at the acres of crimson ruffles.

"And mighty red. When do I wear red?" She paused giving him time to think, though she knew he didn't need it. "I am taking myself and my red dress to my rooms, where I will stay for the rest of the day."

The man made no reply, though his narrowed eyes spoke to having some opinion on the matter. Just like the touching, the voicing of actual, honest thoughts had been banished. No one, not even blunt Wyatt Cain, offered up anything she might find unpleasant.

With another growl of annoyance, she stalked into her room, slamming the door shut with all the violence she could manage. Back home, even at twenty years old, she would have been grounded for such childish behavior, but here people just pretended it didn't happen and went about their business. Cain was probably still standing outside her door, thoughts and arms kept firmly to himself.

DG considered pulling the door open and berating her Tin Man for treating her like everyone else did; he knew what she was capable of, knew better than to act as if she were some porcelain doll. Instead she took her anger out on the dress, which deserved every seam-wrenching tug she gave it. She missed her jeans, her t-shirts, her leather jacket. On her worst days, she even missed her uniform from the Hilltop Café, which said rather a lot. Throwing the tattered mess of fabric to the floor, she stomped to her wardrobe and dug to the bottom, past the layers of slippery satin and silks, and found the rough twill weave of her jeans. She threw them on along with her jacket and t-shirt.

Clothing arranged, she tip-toed to the door and placed her ear to the crack, holding her breath and listening hard. It took five full minutes before she was certain Cain was on duty in the hall; he was silent and still as a statue, but she could just make out the sound of breathing in the stillness.

Grinning, DG ran across her room to the balcony, climbing up and over the carved railing and grabbing what holds she could find in the palace façade. The going was slow and her fingers and arms burned from the effort, but she was still smiling when her sneaker-clad feet touched down on the flagstone courtyard. Elated as she was, she didn't dare squeal for joy; she hadn't managed to escape the palace grounds yet. Afraid to look up for fear of seeing the Tin Man glaring down at her, she ran. She ran across the courtyard, through the manicured gardens and into the sanctuary of the hedge maze. If there was one thing Dorothy Gale Franklin knew better than anyone – other than the proper calibration of a 1960s Triumph Bonneville – it was the way through the mazes of Finaqua; she had more memories of playing hide-and-seek among the hedges than she did of her mother, father and sister combined.

Left turn; right turn. Right; right; left. On and on she ran, never once questioning if she were going the right way. As she rounded the final left turn, the walls opened and she was free. The forest spread out before her in all its wild and tangled glory.

At long last, she allowed herself to turn and give her victory cry.

"Wah—huh?"

Her arms fell lifeless to her sides and the exclamation died in her mouth as she gaped at the man leaning on the entrance to the maze. The fedora covered his eyes, but the hat alone was enough to know who he was.

"How the hell did you get here so fast?" DG practically shouted.

When the Tin Man looked up, she had to fight to keep from taking a defensive step backward. The heat of his gaze made her very glad he had no magic to throw at her, as it was she making every effort to turn herself into a snake small enough to hide under a rock.

"We're going. Now."

Cain pushed himself off the hedge and gave a sharp jab back in the direction of the palace. His stony face and iron voice left no room for her to bargain, she knew, but from where she stood she could see the gilded cage and knew what would happen as soon as she returned. First would come the medicoats, poking and inspecting any graze or bruise; next, the maids throwing her into a bath to wash off the slightest hint of dirt and forcing her into a dress befitting her title; finally, a lecture on expected behaviors and dangers of deviating from assigned paths – with some not-so-gentle reminding of the last time she strayed from the safe path and the witch she freed.

No. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. She was the reason there was still a Finaqua, a Queen, an OZ. She had the right to do what she pleased.

"I'm not going back," she said, forcing her voice as steely as his. "So unless you intend to carry me back, you'll just have to stand there and wait until I'm ready."

There was a pause, a long, sweet pause, during which it actually seemed that she would get her day of freedom. Cain looked down at his hands, his face disappearing beneath the brim of his hat, and DG allowed herself a smile. When the man looked back at her, that smile fell from her lips and she found herself stumbling away from the cold glare he was giving her.

"Fine," he agreed. "We'll do it your way."

She didn't even have time to turn before he was on her, ducking just enough to push his shoulder into her stomach and lift her feet off the ground.

"Cain! This is ridiculous!"

"You'll hear no argument from me, Princess," he said as he started back into the hedge maze.

DG gave up trying to kick him and even the effort of keeping her head lifted became too irritating, so she let it fall, defeated.

"I give up. Why did I think you would care? I did my job, saved the OZ, now I can just sit and smile like a doll, right? 'Don't touch her, she might break. Don't talk to her; don't smile at her.' I don't matter anymore – not to you, not to anyone. Stupid to think you'd care," she muttered into the fabric of his overcoat, not caring if he could hear her, which, of course, he could.

* * *

><p>AN: So I recently re-watched the SyFy (still Sci Fi at the time) mini-series Tin Man and fell in love with it all over again. I stumbled on Alisha Ashton's _If It's Worth Saving Me_ (link in profile) and both fell in love with it and wanted to edit the sh*t out of it, which naturally lead to the creation of this, my adaptation of some portions of that story. _Please, please, please_ go read the original. I'm a firm believer in giving credit where it is due and much of the plot of this is all Alisha Ashton's. Incidentally, Ms. Ashton has authored a 100% original book available for download over at Amazon for $4.99.

To those still waiting for updates on my HP stories, I apologize for the delay. But to be absolutely honest, this is the first writing I've done in about three months, so just be happy my fingers are once again attached to the keyboard. With some luck and hard work, I may yet get the final chapters of both Wedlocked and Time Turned Back finished.

Ta.  
>(Go read the original!)<p> 


	2. Chapter 2: Ruby Slipper

Silver Songs and Tin Men  
>Adapted from Alisha Ashton's<em> If It's Worth Saving Me<em>

Chapter 2: Ruby Slipper

The twin suns rose as they did every morning in the OZ, brilliantly. And like every morning, DG was awake well before they lit the sky on fire. Still, she lay in bed, pretending to sleep as the room around her grew steadily brighter, shadows lengthening and fading into nothing. She could hear the muttering of a maid as she knelt by the hearth, trying to light the fire without waking her. DG scoffed at that; she was probably awake before most of the servants. Her idea of 'sleeping in' was getting up at half-past seven in the morning. Farms did not take kindly to late risers.

"Don't bother with the fire," DG called from her bed.

"Oh!" the maid gave a startled cry. "I am so sorry, highness. I didn't mean to wake you."

"I've been awake for an hour. Don't worry about it…" She frowned slightly that she could not recall the girl's name or her face, the young woman realized as she studied the pale face streaked with ashes and dirt. She was a kitchen maid, and that's all she knew about her. "You got a name?"

"Ruby," the girl said with an awkward curtsey. "Ruby Mitchell."

"DG," she said, though it was pretty pointless introducing herself to anyone anymore.

The maid laughed, a high-pitched, strained sort of laugh. "I know, highness."

"Stop calling me that. I'm DG. Just DG." She grumbled as she rose, throwing on a silk robe where she would have much preferred a scratchy terrycloth one. With a jerk of her head toward the doors, she asked, "So who is on guard today?"

"Young Mr. Cain was on duty when I come to light the fires," Ruby offered, her round brown eyes darting to the doors as if she wanted to run through them as much as DG did. "His father, Mr. Cain, is probably there now, though. No one else ever guards your doors."

"Young Mr. Cain and Mr. Cain," she repeated dully. "So no use trying to escape today. Or ever." She stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror. The shadows under her eyes had grown darker, her skin wasn't just pale it was sickly and her eyes shot through with red. Lacking any way to better express her desperation, she dropped her head onto the polished table top.

"Please, highn—DG," the maid ran to her, her sooty hands offering a consoling touch to her hair before falling away. No one was supposed to touch the princesses, not without express permission and not without a damned good reason. "Please, don't say that. It's lovely here. Much nicer than where I'm from. I spent years living in a –"

DG sat up so fast Ruby actually squeaked in surprise. "You said 'years'!"

"Did I? _Annuals_. I meant annuals."

"You may have meant it, but you said 'years'. You're from the other side!"

Ruby's eyes grew rounder still, so round DG could see the whites circling every bit of the chocolate brown irises. "Dammit! They told me not to, and I did it anyway."

DG was on her feet, arms circling the petite girl as if she were a life preserver. "Where are you from?"

"Pittsburg," the girl said when the princess finally let her go. "Tornado pops up right in the middle of the city and there I am stupidly rushing right at it, too worried about being late back from my lunch break to see the thing right in front of me. Just as well, though, this place is way more swank than where I used to work. Nicer, too, since you gave that old witch the boot. You really grow up in Kansas? Cass down in the kitchens said so, but I didn't believe her."

DG nodded eagerly. "Yeah, Kansas. I used to fix the equipment on the farm and I was a waitress at a crappy dinner, though the pie was really good. Is this kitchen Cass from Kansas, too?"

"Nah," the girl shook her head, dirty blond curls falling from her bun. "She's from… Idaho? Iowa? I dunno, one of those places."

"Are you the only ones from the other side?"

"Are you kidding? There's a bunch of us. The Queen used to bring us on to keep us out of trouble in the OZ; then to keep us from being hunted down by the Longcoats. She's always real sweet and apologetic that she can't just send us home, not knowing that the OZ exists." Ruby's shrug made plain her indifference to the idea of being shipped back across the rainbow to her old life. "I don't mind it here, though a lot of times we get some real whiners. If it's not too degrading, you could come meet the rest of the slippers."

"Ruby," DG said with a grin, "when can we meet?"

oOo

Her princess lessons flew by with none of the usual teeth pulling that normally accompanied them – history, etiquette, dancing, diplomacy – all done and over with for the day, and DG could not have been more pleased. She offered her final tutor of the day a dignified smile and slight bow of her head, as she had been instructed, but the moment the East door closed, she bolted for the doors at the opposite end of the room. Skirt fisted in her hands, she ran full speed past her guard and up the stairs to her rooms.

"Princess!" one of the Cains called after her, throwing the door wide and skidding to a stop. "Dammit, girl!"

Despite Jeb's beet red face and averted eyes, DG was in fact far from naked; the three underskirts, chemise and corset were more layers of fabric than she wore when they first met in the forest. Still, she couldn't help but laugh as she threw her dress at him. "It's your own fault for not knocking."

"Well, what was I supposed to think with you runnin' about the place like that?" the young man cried, his face still hidden behind his hand. "Are you decent yet?"

"By whose standards?"

"Mine!"

"Nope, but you can look anyway." She grinned as he slowly lowered his hand and turned his eyes toward her, clearly ready to drop them if she was playing a trick on him. "So, what do you think?"

"My ma never would have worn that," he offered, eyeing her jeans and t-shirt with something bordering on suspicion.

"Well, then it's a good thing I'm not your mom, then." She smiled brightly. "Come on." She pulled at the door and all but skipped down the hall, Jeb easily keeping pace.

"Where are we going?"

"_I_ am going to the servant wing," she offered in conspiratorial whisper. "_You_ are following me because you're annoying."

"Am not."

"Am not what? Following me or annoying, because you're totally both."

The man rolled his eyes, only making her smile grow wider. DG wanted to keep it up, make him smile and laugh, but she knew it wouldn't work. All the times she had tried, Jeb would put up the soldier's front and offer her little more than cold stares. He was doing nothing to help the image she had of the Cains as captors rather than protectors. The Cain and Jeb she had known before the eclipse, those men had been protectors, allies; they held her up and caught her when she would have fallen. These men, they held her down, locked doors and kept her from freedom. Maybe they didn't see it that way, but that was the truth of it.

"What's in the servant wing?" Jeb asked.

"Servants."

She didn't have to look to see him roll his eyes again. "Beside them?"

"Friends, I'm hoping."

"Friends?"

"Yeah, they're people of a common ilk, who gather to talk and laugh. Do you remember laughter? It's a thing a person does when they aren't being locked in a cage," DG informed him baldly. "By a person, I mean me. And by cage, I mean a palace."

"Some people like palaces," the man replied.

"Yeah, and some people like colonics."

Jeb did not get the chance to ask what on Ozma's green grass a colonic was because DG had started running toward the petite maid at the end of the corridor, launching herself at the girl as if they were lifelong friends.

"Who's this?" Jeb demanded.

"Ruby, she's from the other side," DG smiled and hugged the girl again. "Where are they others?"

The maid threw a thumb over her shoulder. "Through here."

"Ah, uh-uh," her guard declared. "I don't know what's in there."

"Just the girls," Ruby said with a smile. "You're free to meet them." Something in her tone was terrifying, as if she were offering to introduce the lamb to the wolf. "I know some of them have been dying to meet you."

Jeb, who had tried to fight off seven Longcoats at eight years old, who had commanded an entire regimen of rebels by age seventeen, who had lead him men against a sorceress, blanched and stuttered out something that sounded like a 'no, thank you, ma'am'.

DG patted him consolingly on the shoulder. "I'll shout if I need you."

"We'll leave the door open so she can escape if she needs to," Ruby said, again her smile far from gentle.

"What did you do on the other side?" the princess questioned, honestly curious. "Because you sure have a way with men."

The girl batted the comment away. "Men are easy."

"Not for me," DG mumbled, though not so quiet that the other women in the room couldn't hear her.

"Oh! Does our princess have a crush?" a gleeful voice questioned, followed by more laughter than DG had heard in weeks. The sound more than compensated for the eager stares being sent her way by the half-dozen women crushed into the tiny room.

The room was furnished well, if plainly, with benches and tables and two upholstered chairs. Judging by the state of the visible fabric, those two chairs were the clear favorites of all the available seats. Still, it seemed a room without a purpose.

"What is this place?"

"It's a rest room," a woman said with a snort.

"I thought it was a fainting room," another said.

"Same thing 'round here. Work till you faint, only then do you get a rest," a third groaned.

"Says the other princess from our side," Ruby muttered. "Don't mind her. She never had to work a day in her life before slipping through."

"I did so!"

"Charity balls and society functions don't count as work," the housemaid said, her voice taking some middle ground between sarcastic and bored.

"Bloody hard work to coordinate, and I don't care what you say about it." The woman gave a toss of her sleek brown hair, turning her face away in just the right way to highlight her sharp cheekbones and the narrow bridge of her nose. The woman looked more like a princess than DG did, that was certain.

"That's Evelyn. Evelyn Royce, as in Rolls-Royce," Ruby said. "She hails from some posh bit of England I've never heard of but is apparently fabulously wonderful in every way."

"Marnie," a round-cheeked woman said, waving happily from her seat across the room. "From Toledo."

"Kim." This one a woman with a square jaw and a shock of auburn hair.

"Alisha." A blonde with a heart-shaped face and mischief in her eyes.

"Cass, from _Indiana_," the strawberry blond offered Ruby a glare. "She never gets it right. Thinks all the states that aren't Pennsylvania aren't worth remembering."

"Whatever you say," Ruby shooed the criticism away and pulled DG further into the room. "Ladies, meet our newest and most famous slipper. DG."

"Slipper?" DG asked.

"We all slipped through to the OZ on accident," Kim said, revealing an accent as thick and sweet as honey. She might not have met many people from around the States, but even to her a Southern accent that heavy was unmistakable.

"I don't know if I really count as a slipper then, since I was tossed into a Travel Storm on purpose."

"It don't matter," the girl insisted. "You're from our side, so you're one of us. Really we're just thrilled to have access to the upstairs gossip!"

DG smiled at being welcomed as one of their crew, even if she was just a source for new conversation. This new position came into play more quickly than she thought it would; she had barely settled into a hard-backed chair when the blonde –Alisha, DG reminded herself – turned her scheming eyes onto her, reviving the question they had put to her when she first entered the room. "So," she grinned. "Who is your man crush?"

"Oh, is it the adorable one outside?" Cass from Indiana leaned back in her chair nearest the door to get a better look at Jeb. "His hair is gorgeous. I just want to run my hands through it."

"Forget the hair, I care about the backside," Kim from the South insisted. "Like a Georgia peach I'd wager." They all laughed long and hard at that.

"Runs in the family," mischievous Alisha commented. "Have you seen what his old man wears? Swear those pants are painted on."

After so many weeks of etiquette and court training, DG's princess propriety was going into overdrive. She had to fight to keep from covering her mouth or ears with dainty, offended hands. This was normal, she reminded herself. Girls got together and gossiped and ogled men all the time. Granted, she didn't usually do such things about men she considered friends. Did such titles even apply to Cain or Jeb anymore? They had relegated themselves down to the role of guards.

"I'm pretty sure Cain is about as old as Ahamo, who is kind of my dad," DG hedged as they turned to her expectantly. "Not really sure I want to go talking about his pants or what's in them."

"Spoilsport," Ritzy Evelyn Royce sniffed. "Don't see the harm. I still fawn over Sean Connery and he's about as old as my grandfather."

"Precisely!" Alisha declared. This girl was clearly trouble of the most entertaining variety. "Although, it has crossed my mind, working in the laundry as I do, to take advantage of my skills to 'accidentally' shrink those pants a bit more."

As the girls all laughed and encouraged her, DG found herself thinking, 'What would be the point? Those pants already show everything to their full advantage.' And after a pause, 'Whoa, where did that come from?'


End file.
